TEKIAH! Wake Up! As the month of Elul ends and we head into the month of Tishrei, we enter with heightened awareness of how we look at the world and ourselves in it - or we should. The preparations for the High Holidays, gives us an opportunity to make the holidays a more meaningful experience. A facebook friend recently posted that he awoke to the sound an “intruder trying to enter a bedroom window!!!”It turned out to be a raccoon that he chased away repeatedly for 30 minutes by periodically pounding on the window as it left and returned, left and returned. I wrote, “Happy to hear it was only a raccoon.” I saw him a week later. He told me that of the many responses he had received, mine was the only one with that perspective. OK, he said, “It takes a rabbi’s perspective.” But the truth is, it doesn’t. What it takes is a change of perspective. We have become so accustomed to looking at everything in the negative: politics, news, reports from authority figures, even weather. It takes practice to see the positives in life, but there is a positive side to each negative. That’s how the world was made. Two sides to the coin, three if you count the edge. That gives us more than one way to look at every situation. Opening ourselves up to new perspectives allows us to enter the High Holidays more prepared. ‘Where I have done well and where I have gone astray’, will not be as daunting if you have been contemplating it over time. The wrestling of the soul becomes a familiar exercise and with it life appears different. Like the raccoon that came and went, you may feel that sometimes you are winning the wrestling match and sometimes it has you flat on your back, but the struggle is building strength for the inner spirit. Like all exercise, it takes time. That’s why each year we have the ten days of Yamim Noraim, (the Days of Awe), the month of Elul, and it is said that the Gates of Repentence are never closed. Keep the exercise going all year. I wish you and yours L’Shana Tovah U’metuka, a very sweet and healthy New Year.